Recent Immigration of Muslims Revives Debate on Law of Return

Reports that several hundred Muslims have immigrated to Israel in recent weeks has sparked renewed debate here over Israel’s Law of Return, which grants citizenship to anyone with a Jewish grandparent.

The Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee this week discussed the recent arrival of about 700 citizens of a Muslim country to Israel, Israel Radio reported.

The name of the Muslim country, as well as specific details of the immigration effort, have been placed under Israeli censorship.

But officials involved in the immigration effort said about half of the immigrants are practicing Jews who were admitted to Israel under the Law of Return. The rest,who converted to Islam or are in mixed families, came under immigration laws allowing for family reunification.

News of the immigration has renewed a debate over the Law of Return that started with recent emigration from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union.

Religious leaders at a national conference of rabbis this week said that up to a third of those who emigrated from the former Soviet Union in the past five years are not Jewish.

But Absorption Minister Yair Tsaban said the figures are closer to 10 to 15 percent, most of whom are part of mixed families.

But in light of recent events, some political and religious officials are saying the law no longer suits the current times and are calling for its amendment.

But others believe that amending the law will open a pandora’s box of debate over “Who is a Jew.” Such a debate should be avoided, they say.

Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yisrael Meir Lau, stopped short of calling for an amendment to the law, but he did say the Law of Retum was being applied in a way its authors did not intend.

“The situation of the last five years must bring us to a new thought and concept,” Lau told Israel Radio.

He said that emigration by non-Jews who have one Jewish grandparent “raises the question if this is a Jewish state, but also is this a state for the Jewish people? This is the problem we must consider.”

At the Jewish Agency for Israel, which overseas immigration of endangered communities, Acting Chairman Yefiiel Leket said he opposed reforming the Law of Return.

He said the solution lies in showing an openness toward immigrants and enabling them to undergo the required conversion process quickly and efficiently

Leket said the proposed reforms of religious and ultra-Orthodox factions could potentially prevent the immigration of mixed couples and of those people who did not convert according to Orthodox law.

However, another agency official, Uri Gordon, who heads the department of immigration and absorption at the agency, differs in his view.

He said that the law in its present form allows for “a massive immigration to Israel of people who have absolutely no interest or connection to Judaism.”

Gordon has been in contact with members of fervently Orthodox parties in the Knesset to discuss changing the Law.

National Religious Party Knesset member Yitzhak Levy this week introduced a proposed amendment to the law that would make it applicable only to a person’s spouse, and children, who are recognized as Jews.

“An absurd situation has evolved in which the state and the Jewish Agency are investing tens of millions of shekels in bringing non-Jews here, who will go pray in churches and mosques,” he said.

Tsaban has urged the Orthodox party members not to amend the Law of Return. He warned that grave results could emerge from the “Who is a Jew” debate.

‘Arguing the issue is like making cholent,” he said. “You put all the ingredients in, but you don’t know what will come out.”

Tsaban said the issue should be dealt with through legislation and vigilant screening of immigration candidates.

Meanwhile, Israeli’s chief Sephardi rabbi, Eliahu Bakshi-Doron, reportedly asked the Absorption Ministry and the Jewish Agency to ensure that only those people who are practicing Jews, or who intend to convert to Judaism, be allowed to move to Israel from the Muslim country.

The Jewish Agency said it was unaware of any appeal from Bakshi-Doron.

In any case, senior officials at the agency said this week that the rate of immigration from the Muslim country had decreased recently.